#Achilles and his mother

[atlantic-riona]

Batgirl #9 (2000) // the Iliad trans. Caroline Alexander // Táin Bó Cuailnge trans. Thomas Kinsella

[floralcavern]

THE FACT THAT WHEN ACHILLES LEARNED HIS MOM CAN’T SEE HIM ON THE MOUNTAIN, HIS FIRST INSTINCT IS TO SLEEP WITH HIS BEST FRIEND.

[3am-thoughts-of-achilles]

Achilles: you can't make everyone like you, you're not Patroclus

Odysseus: What? Not everyone likes Patroclus

Achilles, now offended: who doesn't like Patroclus?

Odysseus: ...well—

Achilles: names, now. Give me their names

[ricebooks]

Theseus Hadesgame is so wacky to me. Imagine becoming king in Elysium and enjoying an eternity of sport, prestige, and companionship with the very minotaur you slew. Depending on the myth, you are the son of Aegeus and Aethra or Poseidon and Aethra. There's even a version where you are the son of Aegeus, Aethra, and Poseidon, because Athena (your godly cousin/matchmaker????) came to your mother in a dream and told her how to get possessed by Poseidon (your father? mother? fother??? mather???).

You are eternally in your prime. You fight This Random Guy every day/night. Sometimes you call on the aid of Dionysus, your ex's (who happens to be Asterius' sister, who helped you escape the labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur and whom you abandoned on the island of Naxos) immortal husband and get smacked around and drunk from your own divine call. But anything for the fans right? Fans love a good show!

When That Random Guy eventually bests you, you amp up the trash talk until suddenly your best friend seems like he hates you and you fear for your friendship (relationship?). That Random Guy reduces his greeting to "Asterius. Other guy." You call That Random Guy a homewrecker until your best friend steps in and clarifies his relationship to That Random Guy.

(Good, it wasn't like you had been hiding insecurities about your self-worth and playing up the cockiness for the fans.)

Somewhere along the line, the Queen returns. Somewhere along the line, you fight in a bronze chariot and golden armor befitting of the king you are, graciously provided by Daedalus. Asterius looks dashing in his armor. You continue calling That Guy names like "blackguard" and "monster." He can't possibly be any sort of royalty whatsoever; just a wayward shade with the same laurel as Lord Hades, a pauldron of three skulls that is not reminiscient of Cerberus, the King's loyal, three-headed dog, and divine weapons he obviously stole!

You continue the rest of your undead life. You are happy to eternally remain with Asterius and fight with him for eternity. Perhaps you wonder the origins of That Guy, but you never deign to ask.

That Guy, in your eyes, is still a homewrecker.

[mychlapci]

i never liked the story of achilles because like i dont think that a normal person would die if shot in the heel. why did that kill him. did he experience pain for the first time in his life and got so shocked his heart stopped like he's some kind of a hamster. what is this bullshit

[ruthlesslistener]

Made the mistake of telling my family that if I ever won the lottery, all the money left over after buying a nice house and getting my loved ones out of debt would go to reversing climate change, and my dad told me that it should go to world hunger relief efforts and humanitarian aid instead. Which is just- where the fuck do you think the food is coming from, asshole?? The fucking sky??? Some god that you think pulls miracles from thin air??????? Healthy ecosystems are ABUNDANT with food and the people who are starving rn are the ones who are going hungry because of overfishing, land exploitation, and climate change what the FUCK do you think fixing the ecosystems would do otherwise

[youremysunshine8]

Patroclus considering the death of Achilles: "When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him"

Achilles holding the ashes of Patroclus: "When I am dead, I charge you to mingle our ashes and bury us together."

- The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller

[monstrumpuella]

Meet Achilles

[mycological-mariner]

Crying while reading The Flight of the Heron. Keith really is just out here calling Ewen “my Achilles” nine times in two pages

[wilberave]

ok not that i’ve been thinking about this for days or anything but patroclus’ purpose is not to die, it’s to be loved in a way that even death cannot touch, so jot that down….

[streets-in-paradise]

While rereading The Iliad i gotta say I love how Achilles goes to his mom anytime he has an inconvenience. Troy as a movie may had shortened things about their bond with them sharing only one scene and being aged up made him less whiny but consider this: 

Stoic movie Achilles that still goes to his mom whenever he has an inconvenience and its very clear that he adores her. Like, to everyone else he keeps the badass facade of scariest man in Greece but at the moment he is seeing Thetis he transforms. 

Patroclus is the onlyone who knows about this but can’t mock him much because she awakens his soft fiber too.    

[nambnb]

Things I find funny

If we believe this family tree in regards to Patroclus and Achilles, then Patroclus has a quarter of god’s blood in him, too.

This is only one possiblity of their family tree, of course, since there are many variations on the identity of Patroclus’ mother, for example. Same with the ancestry of Aecus’ wife Endeïs (who could have been a daughter of Chiron, too). I also ignored the fact that nymphs are not on the same god-level as the Olympian gods.

(I also think it’s funny that  Patroclus’ father, Menoetius, was a demigod himself. He was an Argonaut, too, though he doesn’t seem to have played a prominent role. But since he was friends with fellow Argonaut Peleus and told his son to give sound advice to Achilles, he’s good in my book.)

[floralcavern]

Peleus: Achilles, my son, take this servant girl and have a good time with her, heh, if you know what I mean

Achilles: *fuming with gay rage* No thank you *marches back to his room*

Patroclus: You ever think it’s weird how we’re the only virgins in the whole castle?

Achilles: I CAN CHANGE THAT IF YOU LET ME!

[wellbelesbian]

WIP Wednesday Thursday

my notifications must be well and truly busted, because tumblr didn’t bother to tell me that @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @erzbethluna and @confused-bi-queer all tagged me for WIP Wednesday yesterday until now, which is evidently no longer Wednesday. thanks anyway, guys!

but i’ve been staying up until 5 the past few nights engaged in a new WIP, so the petty constraints of linear time won’t stop me!

it’s not Carry On related, but i was tagged on this account so i’ll post it here anyway.

it’s sort of a retelling of the trojan war, except it’s set 18 years later and is all about the aftermath and the survivors. i try to stay mostly true to the sources, but also patch up any holes. like Briseis. she’s a major part of the Iliad, but then we just never find out what happens to her after Achilles dies! what??

it’s told from the perspective of Astyanax, who you may know was the infant son of Hector, the crown prince of Troy, and was thrown from the walls of the city when the war ended. except a lot of sources outside of Homer posit that he didn’t 👀

my Astyanax, who is non binary, was raised by his aunts Oenone, the first wife of Paris, and Cassandra, who also narrowly escaped death. but when Cassandra prophecies that they must make amends with the house of Achilles and Hector’s ghost urges them to find their mother Andromache, they set out an adventure and piece together the aftermath of the war as they go.

so yeah. i’ve spent the past few nights writing a rather long and detailed outline, making character picrews, and creating a big messy family tree. so here’s an excerpt, and i’ll put the family tree below too just for fun.

cw for mentions of rape

“Did Oenone ever tell you I was married?” Cassandra pulls up a handful of grass and twists her fingers in it, looking out to the sea.

“No.” Oenone told me so much about my family. I can recite all 99 of my aunts and uncles, as well as their spouses. But not Cassandra’s. I never knew. I wonder what else she never told me, and why.

“His name was Coroebus. I put off marriage for years. Becoming a priestess helped, and my supposed madness drove plenty of potential suitors away, but there are always men willing to look past an unpleasant wife if the alliance brings them power.” She throws the grass down and mumbles “no, that’s not fair to him. He was a good man.” She takes a deep breath. I wait in silence, not wanting to spook her.

“My parents forced me to marry him eventually. He was a king who came to Troy’s aid, I was their thanks, and they thought he might calm me down. He was gentle, and considerate, so I tried to be good. He listened to me, even if he didn’t believe me. And I never had any visions of what was to become of him, which was a mercy. Not that it mattered. That damned horse showed up just three days after we married. He died protecting me in the temple, and then that brute Ajax…” Her breath catches, she squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. “His body was only a few feet away.”

I don’t even know what to say. Everyone suffered that night, death and loss and rape all across the city. I know it, but I can’t wrap my head around the enormity of it. I understand suddenly why it’s so hard for her to look upon the city’s ruins.

At a loss for words, I lean over and wrap my arms around her, letting her rest her head on my shoulder. She laughs brokenly. “I think this is supposed to be the other way around. You’re the baby of the family.” I don’t fight her about it this time. After a few minutes, she pulls away and wipes at her eyes.

“How do you live with it?”

“How do any of us?” She asks incredulously. “Oenone lives in the past, and when she runs out of ways to run from reality she turns into a rock.” She clasps my hands and meets my eyes, darkest brown with a pinprick of red fire dancing deep within. “I’ll tell you my secret. Every morning, when I wake up, I lie there and I list them. Everyone who died, for Troy, for me. My parents, my siblings, Coroebus, the Amazons. And then I get up, and I live that day for them.” I squeeze her hands, and she squeezes them back. “Do you understand? We live for them.”

and here’s the mess of a family tree, with Priam and Hecuba’s other 96 kids not pictured.

[alternis]

oh no, boymom lady shiva actually fits into SHS au. her eldest daughter is the recipient of trauma projection and psychological violence and death matches, meanwhile her Special Boy only gets a couple years of attempted psychological manipulation/death battles and then dysfunctional vigilante bonding.

[femmeconomics]

What are your thoughts re:Madeline Miller? I really liked tsoa and I’ve heard some criticism but I don’t agree with lots of it

oh i just thought her books kinda sucked lmao